Mr Baylis OBE, 76, developed the world’s first wind-up radio in the early nineties. More recently, he has invented a mobile phone that is charged by a special pair of shoes as you walk. “Unfortunately, people are a bit nervous of the shoes because they look a bit like a bomb,” he admits.

He has also developed a self-weighing briefcase – “perfect for those Ryanair trips where you don’t want to pay a fine for being half a kilo over” – and about 250 products for disabled people.

“I used to be a stunt man in the circus,” he explains. “I was in love with an aerial ballet dancer who fell off a rope and was crushed. It was then that I knew disability was only a banana skin away.”

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Innovation, according to Mr Baylis, is key to the future prosperity of the UK.

A fact that is being largely ignored by Government and the education policy makers.

“Kids today need to put down their mobile phones and start tinkering,” he says. “Schools just aren’t teaching them enough about the importance of invention. Kids are so computer and mobile obsessed these days that they don’t know how to drive a nail into a piece of wood.

“You should know how to light a fire and build a tent by the age of 10. Instead, kids are becoming obese by spending all their time in front of screens, large and small.”

Mr Baylis has called on education groups to start championing the achievements of inventors across the ages.

“I bet most people have never heard of Frank Whittle, the 21-year old who invented the jet engine, or Stephanie Kwolek, the chemist who invented Kevlar in 1965,” he says.

“If I had my way I would make it mandatory for every school to have a framed picture of an inventor and teach the children about their invention. You don’t have to have a Viennese accent and broken glasses to be an inventor.”